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coalition (with Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Belgium) with the aim of constructing a ‘blocking minority’ coalition to oppose decoupling (since France had no German support for that). But, as previously discussed, Fischler and Blair had managed to convince Spain to switch sides. When the Spanish defection became obvious, other ‘blocking minority’ coalition members suddenly started to re-evaluate their positions also. For example, when the Irish government realized in the final stage of negotiations that its beef sector would able to cope, despite its farmers’ insistence to the contrary, with full decoupling, Ahern’s administration also changed its position (Garzon 2006, 114). This increased the area of the ZOPA of the pro-coalition. Realization that the pro-coalition member states were, through trial-and-error negotiation, likely to eventually find a point in the multi-dimensional ZOPA that allowed them to agree to a reform that might be highly disadvantageous to the French national chief negotiator, the latter also chose to modify his position. The French reaction to events is, perhaps, one of the best proofs of the logic of multi-level games. As the theory predicts, events and re-alignments at one level of the game reverberate through another and cause further re-alignments there. This is exactly what happened in France: faced with isolation and exclusion from the pro-reform coalition, the previously solid front against the Fischler Reform within France started crack too. “As soon as Spain moved in favour of the reforms, French Minister Hervé Gaymard read the tea leaves and started negotiating at the last hour in order to grab at least some concessions in exchange for his positive vote” (Pirzio-Biroli, 2008, p. 107). The final moments then witnessed Italy (which, having refused to join the French, then found themselves leading the ‘no' coalition) making a number of unacceptable requests. However, these requests were all rejected since Italy’s vote was no longer pivotal, and the Italian 49